Oscar Pistorius listens to evidence at court in Pretoria, South Africa, on March 13. / Alet Pretorius, AP

by John Bacon, USA TODAY

by John Bacon, USA TODAY

The first policeman to arrive at the South African home of Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius on the day he fatally shot his girlfriend testified Thursday with graphic details and photos of the bloody scene he encountered.

Col. Schoombé Van Rensburg walked through what he found in the bedroom and bathroom at Pistorius' home on that fatal Valentine's Day morning last year, South Africa's Times Live reported.

Van Rensburg said he and Warrant Officer Hilton Botha followed the blood trail from the bottom of the stairs where Reeva Steenkamp's body lay covered by towels and black plastic trash bags, through Pistorius' bedroom and to the bathroom where she was shot.

Pistorius, 27, has said he accidentally shot Steenkamp, 29, thinking she was an intruder. Prosecutors at his murder trial in Pretoria say he intentionally shot her after a heated argument.

Times Live describes a series of court photos showing an air gun and baseball bat leaning against a glass display cabinet at the entrance to the bedroom and a gun holster lying on a bedside table.

A cartridge case was found in the wardrobe passage outside the bathroom entrance. Three cartridges were inside the bathroom.

The blood spattered cricket bat that Pistorius used to break down the bathroom door after the shooting sat on the bathroom floor next to a bloodstained towel.

Pistorius's cocked 9mm Parabellum pistol lay on the bathroom mat next to two cellphones. Pieces of the broken toilet door were scattered across the floor.

A tearful Pistorius was pacing in the kitchen, van Rensburg recalled. The policeman said he asked the athlete what had happened, but Pistorius didn't answer. Van Rensburg said he asked Pistorius to stay in one area of the kitchen, which he did.

"We then followed the trail of blood up the stairs," van Rensburg said as chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel led him slowly through the sequence of events that night.

Earlier, a photograph of Pistorius' blood-stained prosthetic legs was used by his chief defense lawyer to attempt to show that the athlete was wearing them, as he says, when he broke down a toilet door with a cricket bat to get to the girlfriend he fatally shot.

The image, showing the prosthetic limbs with white socks and stained with Steenkamp's blood up to the knee, was displayed by lawyer Barry Roux on a TV monitor. Roux was trying to reinforce the Olympian's story that he shot the model by mistake, then broke through a locked toilet door to help her.

Pistorius, a double amputee who made headlines around the globe at the 2012 Olympics in London, faces a possible life sentence in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and three firearm-related offenses.